For the H2 economy to take-off, the H2 storage challenge needs to be tackled, and ammonia is recently taking a key role. Ammonia is one the largest volume commodity chemicals worldwide. It has the highest H2 storage capacity (17.8 wt.%) of the hydrogen carrier, and has well-established trading routes worldwide.

 

While for ammonia synthesis and transportation technological solutions are at hand, a missing link in the hydrogen delivery scheme from ammonia is an energy efficient technology for ammonia cracking to H2. The most explored option for ammonia decomposition is the thermo-catalytic cracking, an endothermic reaction requiring high temperatures (500-800 °C) to achieve a high conversion. Heating the gas feed and catalyst bed to such temperatures requires a sustainable heat source for minimal CO2 emissions, or complex heat integration schemes.

 

In this thesis, we will instead electrify the ammonia cracking technology by using ohmic heating (resistive heating) for the energy-efficient electrical catalytic decomposition of ammonia (e-cracking).